Davis, author of The World according to Fannie Davis Lane’s compelling voice couldn’t be more timely.' -Bridgett M. She renders each interior life with such tenderness and toughness that the tradition of black women’s storytelling leaps forward within these pages-into fresh, daring, and excitingly new territory. 'In this evocative memoir, Cassandra Lane deftly uses the act of imagination to reclaim her ancestors’ story as a backdrop for telling her own. “Lane explores the ways the past informs the present-and how to beautifully reclaim it.” - The Millions

“An exceptional memoir of self-discovery through family histories.” - Foreword Reviews (starred review) A multiangled exploration of family trauma and the forging of an identity.” - Kirkus Reviews “In this narrative, Lane seeks an origin story, searching for what facts are available and wondering about the legacy she is passing on. “ We Are Bridges makes a stunning contribution to what must become our collective memory.” -NPR In so doing, creates lush scenes and dancing, intimate dialogue, that pull the reader effectively into both the terror and the tenderness, and give her forebears’ ghosts flesh and form.” - Boom California “It’s memoir, yes, but it’s also a journey into the speculative, tunneling back into a series of what ifs and if onlys. “As Lane trains her investigative arsenal on her own past, the work achieves the kind of translucence familiar only to great memoirists, as the unbearable brilliance of the author's intellect shines through the tissue of her memories like sunlight through leaves.” -Rain Taxi Review of Books “Through the pain contained in the pages of We Are Bridges, there is always this movement toward hope, as pregnancy connects her ancestors to her offspring.” -Mom Egg Review Haunting and poetic, this debut traces the strange fruit borne from the roots of personal loss in one Black family-and considers how to take back one’s American story.

We Are Bridges turns to creative nonfiction to reclaim a family history from violent erasure so that a mother can gift her child with an ancestral blueprint for their future. She moves between the twentieth-century rural South and present-day Los Angeles, reimagining the intimate life of her great-grandparents Mary Magdalene Magee and Burt Bridges, and Burt's lynching at the hands of vengeful white men in his southern town.

When Cassandra Lane finds herself pregnant at thirty-five, the knowledge sends her on a poignant exploration of memory to prepare for her entry into motherhood.

We Are Bridges by Cassandra Lane